Re: [dev] announcing edit-pipe

From: Greg Reagle <greg.reagle_AT_umbc.edu>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2017 14:16:23 -0400

On Sun, Aug 27, 2017, at 13:48, Thomas Levine wrote:
> * mktemp is not portable; you could use something like the date and
> process identifier ($$) to create a portable temporary file.
> (I am actually still curious as to whether there is a reasonable
> portable approach that is less sloppy than this.)

I'm not sure the best way to do that or if it's worth the extra
complication. It is unfortunate that POSIX doesn't have mktemp or a
command to do the same thing. However, mktemp seems to be very widely
available. It is in GNU coreutils (i.e. Gnu/Linux), OpenBSD, NetBSD,
FreeBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, Tru64 Unix.

> * I don't have /usr/bin/editor; how about you fall back to
> $(/usr/bin/env which ed)? Even better, just use /usr/bin/env ed
> directly rather than assigning its path as a string.

Excellent suggestion; will do.

> * Print errors to stderr (>&2).

Excellent suggestion; will do.

> * Quote "$edit" in case the editor has a space in its name.

I deliberately do not quote $edit so that I can set EDITOR to nano -w.
Is that non-standard/wacky? Is there a convention for whether the the
value of EDITOR environment variable should be able to have options?

> * You haven't handled editor errors.

I'm not sure the best way to do that or if it's worth the extra
complication.

> * vipe still is better because it has a man page.

I could make a man page.

Thanks so much for your feedback.
Received on Sun Aug 27 2017 - 20:16:23 CEST